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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52055	Smectymnuus redivivus Being an answer to a book, entituled, An humble remonstrance. In which, the original of liturgy episcopacy is discussed, and quæries propounded concerning both. The parity of bishops and presbyters in scripture demonstrated. The occasion of the imparity in antiquity discovered. The disparity of the ancient and our moderne bishops manifested. The antiquity of ruling elders in the church vindicated. The prelaticall church bounded.	Smectymnuus.; Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.; Calamy, Edmund, 1600-1666.; Young, Thomas, 1587-1655.; Newcomen, Matthew, 1610?-1669.; Spurstowe, William, 1605?-1666.	1654 (1654)	Wing M784; ESTC R223740	77,642	91

the fore-front yet it is evident that the Epistles themselves are dedicated to all the Angels and Ministers in every Church and to the Churches themselves And if to the whole Church much more to the Presbyters of that Church This is proved Revel 1.11 What thou seest write in a Book and send it to the seven Churches which are in Asia And also by the Epiphonema of every Epistle He that hath an care to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches Upon which words Ambrosius Ausbertus in his second book upon the Revelation saith thus Vnâ eademque locutione Angelos Ecclesias unum esse designat Nam cum in principio locutionum quae ad septem fiunt Angelos dicat Angelo illius Ecclesiae scribe in fine tamen earundem non dicit Qui habet aurem audiat quod spiritus dicat Angelo sed quid Ecclesiae dicat By one and the same phrase of speech he sheweth the Angels and the Churches to be one and the same For whereas in the beginning of his speech which he makes to the seven Churches he saith And write to the Angel of the Churches yet in the close of the same he doth not say He that hath an Eare let him heare what the Spirit saith to the Angel but what he saith to the Church And this is further proved by the whole argument of those Epistles wherein the admonitions threatnings commendations and reproofes are directed to all the Ministers of all the Churches Revel 2.10 The Devil shall cast some of you into prison c. Revel 2.16 I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth Revel 2.24 I will put upon you no other burthen c. I say unto you and the rest of Thyatira as many as have not this Doctrine and which have not known the depths of Satan c. And when it is said in the singular Number as it is often I know thy works and labour c. vers 2. and vers 4. Repent and do thy first works and vers 13. Thou hast not denyed my Faith c. and cap. 3.26 Because thou art neither hot nor cold c. All these and the like places are not to be understood as meant of one individual person but of the whole company of Ministers and also of the whole Church because that the punishment threatned is to the whole Church Revel 2.5 Repent and do thy first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy Candlestick out of his place Rev. 2.16 Repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and will fight against thee with the sword of my mouth Revel 2.24 I will not put upon you any other burthen Now we have no warrant in the Word to think that Christ would remove his Gospel from a Church for the sin of one Bishop when all the other Ministers and the Churches themselves are free from those sins And if God should take this course in what woeful miserable condition should the Church of England be which groaneth under so many corrupt Prelates By all this it appears that the word Angel is not to be taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not properly but figuratively And this is the judgment of Master Perkins upon the second Chapter of the Revelation and of Master Brightman and of Doctor Fulke who in answer to the Rhemists in Apoc. 1.20 hath these words S. Iohn by the Angels of the Churches meaneth not all that should wear on their heads Myters and hold crosier staves in their hands like dead Idols but them that are the faithful messengers of Gods word and utter and declare the same Again they are called the Angels of the Churches because they be Gods messengers Master Fox likewise in his Meditation upon the Revelation pag. 7.9.17 is of this opinion and hath gathered to our hands the opinions of all Interpreters he could meet and saith that they all consent in this that under the person of an Angel the Pastors Ministers of the Churches were understood S. Austin in his 132. Epistle saith thus Sic enim in Apocalypsi legitur Angelus c. Quod si de Angelo superiorum colorum non de Praepositis Ecclesiarum vellet intelligi non consequenter diceret Habeo adversum te c. And so in his second Homily upon the Revelation if that book be his Quod autem dicit Angelo Thyatirae Habeo adversum te panca dicit Praepositis Ecclesiarum c This also Gregory the Great lib. 34. Moral in Iob. cap. 4. Saepe sacram scripturam praedicatores Ecclesiae pro eo quod patris gloriam annunciant angelorum nomine solere designare hinc esse quod Iohannes in Apocalypsi septem Ecclesiis scribens angelis Ecclesiarum loquitur id est Praedicatoribus populorum Master Box citeth Primasius Haymo Beda Richard Thomas and others to whom we refer you If it be here demanded as it is much by the Hierarchical side that if by Angel be meant the whole company of Presbyters why Christ did not say to the Angels in the plural number but to the Angel in the singular We answer that though this question may savor of a litle too much curiosity yet we will make bold to subjoyn three conjectural reasons of this phrase of speech First it is so used in this place because it is the common language of other Scriptures in types and visions to set down a certain number for an uncertain the singular number for the plural Thus the Ram Dan. 8.3 is interpred vers 20. to be the Kings of Media and Persia. And the enemies of Gods Church are set out by four horns And the deliverers by four Carpenters Zach. 1.18.20 And the wise and foolish Virgins are said to be five wise and five foolish And many such like And therefore as we answer the Papists when they demand why Christ if he meant figuratively when he saith this is my body did not speak in plain language this is the sign of my body We say that this phrase of speech is proper to all Sacraments So we also answer here this phrase of speech Angel for Angels is common to all types and visions Secondly Angel is put though more be meant that so it may hold proportion with the vision which Iohn saw Chap. 1.12.20 He saw seven golden Candlesticks and seven Stars And therefore to hold proportion the Epistles are directed to seven Angels and to seven Churches And this is called a mystery Revel 1.20 The Mystery of the seven Stars c. Now a mystery is a secret which comprehends more th●n is expressed and therefore though but one Angel be expressed yet the mystery implyes all the Angels of that Church Thirdly to signifie their unity in the Ministerial function and joynt commission to attend upon the feeding and governing of one Church with one common care as it were with one hand and heart And this i● more fitly declared

SMECTYMNUUS REDIVIVUS BEING An Answer to a Book entituled AN HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE In which The Originall of LITURGY EPISCOPACY is discussed And Quaeres propounded concerning both The PARITY of Bishops and Presbyters in Scripture Demonstrated The occasion of their IMPARITY in Antiquity discovered The DISPARITY of the Ancient and our Moderne Bishops manifested The ANTIQUITY of ruling Elders in the Church vindicated The PRELATICALL Church Bounded JEREMY 6.16 Thus saith the Lord stand in the wayes and behold and aske for the Old way which is the way and walk therein Tertul. de praescr adv haeres Id Dominicum verum quod prius traditum id autem extraneum falsum quod sit posterius LONDON Printed by T. C. for Iohn Rothwell at the Fountaine and Beare in Goldsmiths-row in Cheapside 1654. TO THE READER Good Reader SOlomon told us long since that there is no end of many books Eccles. 12.12 Scripturiency it seemeth is no novell humour but abounded then even when the means of transmitting knowledge was more difficult if there were cause for the complaint then there is much more now since the Presse hath helped the Penne every one will be scribling and so better bookes are neglected and lie like a few grains of Corn under an heap of Chaffe and dust usually books are received as fashions the newest not the best and most profitable are most in esteem in so much that really learned and sober men have been afraid to publish their labours lest they should divert the world from reading the usefull works of others that wrote before them I remember Dr. Altingius a terse and neat spirit stood out the battery of twenty years importunity and would not yield to divulge any thing upon this fear Certainly Reader 't is for thy profit sometimes to look back and consult with them that first laboured in the mines of knowledge and not alwaies to take up with what commeth next to hand In this controversie of Discipline many have written but not all with a like judgement and strength which I believe hath been no small rock of offence and stone of stumbling to the adversaries who are hardned with nothing so much as a weak defence of the truth as Austin complaineth that when he was a Manichee he had had too too often the victory put into his hands by the defences of weak and unskilfull Christians This work which the Stationer hath now revived that it may not be forgotten and like a Jewel after once shewing shut up in the Cabinet of private studies only was penned by severall worthy Divines of great note and fame in the Churches of Christ under the borrowed and covert name of SMECTYMNUUS which was some matter of scorn and exception to the adversaries as the Papists objected to Calvin his printing his Institutions under the name of Alcuinus and to Bucer his naming himself Aretius Felinus though all this without ground and reason the affixion of the name to any work being a thing indifferent for there we should not consider so much the Author as the matter and not who said it but what and the assumption of another name not being infamous but where it is done out of deceit and to anothers prejudice or out of shame because of guilt or feare to own the truths which they should establish I suppose the reverend Authours were willing to lie hid under this ONOMASTICK partly that their work might not be received with prejudice the faction against which they dealt arrogating to themselves a Monopoly of Learning and condemning all others as ignorants and novices not worthy to be heard and partly that they might not burden their Frontispiece with a voluminous nomenclature it not being usuall to affix so many names at length to one Treatise For the work it self it speaketh its own praise and is now once more subjected to thy censure and judgement This second publication of it was occasioned by another book for vindication of the Ministery by the Provinciall Assembly of London wherein there are frequent appeals to Smectymnuus though otherwise I should have judged the reprinting seasonable for the Lord hath now returned us to such a juncture of time wherein there is greater freedom of debate without noyse and vulgar prejudice and certainly if the quarrell of Episcopacy were once cleared and brought to an issue we should not be so much in the dark in other parts of Discipline the conviction of an errour by solid grounds being the best way to finde out the truth reformations carried on with popular tumult rather then rationall conviction seldom end well though the judgement of God be to be observed in powring contempt upon those which are partiall in his law yet the improvident leapes which a people are wont to make upon such occasions lay the foundation of a lasting mischiefe I hope that by the review of these matters we shall come to know more of the Lords counsell for the ordering of his house or at least that by weighing what may be said on all sides we shall learn more to truth it in love which is the unfeined desire of him who is Thine in the Lord THO. MANTON Newington June 23. 1653. Most Honourable Lords And ye the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Honourable House of COMMONS ALthough we doubt not but that book which was lately directed to your Honours bearing the name of an Humble Remonstrance hath had accesse unto your presence and is in the first approaches of it discovered by your discerning spirits to be neither Humble nor a Remonstrance but a heap of confident and ungrounded assertions so that to your Honours a Reply may seem superfluous Yet left the Authour should glory in our silence as a granting of the cause we humbly crave your Honours leave to present not so much to your selves as to the world by your hands a view of this Remonstrance in which the Authour after too large a Preface undertakes the support of two things which seem to him to be threatned with danger of a present precipice the Liturgie and the Hierarchy It was a constitution of those admired sons of Justice the Areopagi that such as pleaded before them should plead without prefacing and without passion had your Honours made such a constitution this Remonstrance must have been banished from the face of your Assembly for the Preface fils almost a fourth part of the book and the rest swels with so many passionate Rhetorications as it is harder for us in the multitude of his words to finde what his argument is that we have to answer then to answer it when it is found We would not trace him in his words but close immediately with his arguments did we not finde in him a sad exemplification of that divine Axiome in Multitudine verb●rum non deest peccatum in the multitude of words there wants not sin for though the Author is bold to call upon your Honours to heare the

book prescribes Responsories to be said by the people some of which are unsutable to what the Minister pronounceth some of them seem to savour of Tautology some are made to be so essential to the prayer as that all which the Minister saith is no prayer without them as in the Letany Because it is so much Idolized as that it is accounted the only worship of God in England and is now made the upholder of a non-preaching Ministry and is cryed up to that height as that some are not ashamed to say that the wit of men and Angels cannot mend it and that it is a sufficient discharge of the Ministers duty to read this Book There are such multitudes of people that distaste this book that unlesse it be altered there is no hope of any mutual agreement between Gods Ministers and their people There is such a vast difference between it and the Liturgies of all other reformed Churches as that it keepes them at a distance from us and us from full Communion with them QUERE II. Whether the first reformers of Religion did ever intend the use of a Liturgy further then to be an help in the want or to the weaknesse of a Minister All other reformed Churches though they use Liturgies yet doe no binde their Ministers to the use of them A Rubrick in King Edwards book left it unto the discretion of the Minister what and how much to read when there was a Sermon The Homilies which are appointed to be read are left free either to be read or not by preaching Ministers and why not then theLiturgy especially considering that the ability to offer up the peoples wants to God in prayer is part of the Ministerial office as well as preaching And if it can be thought no lesse then sacriledge to rob the people of the Ministers gift in preaching and to tye them to Homilies it can be no lesse to deprive them of their gift in prayer The ground of the first binding of it upon all to use was not to tye godly men from exercising their gift in prayer but the old Popish Priests that by a seeming returne to our Religion did through indulgence retaine their places from returning to the old Masse That which makes many refuse to be present at our Church service is not onely the Liturgy it self but the imposing of it upon Ministers And we finde no way to recover our people to a stinted prayer but by leaving it free to use or not to use If it be objected that this will breed divisions and disturbances in Churches unlesse there be a uniformity and that there are many unable It hath not bred any disturbance in other reformed Churches Why should the free liberty of using or not using a Liturgy breed more confusion then the free liberty of reading or not reading Homilies especially when Ministers shall teach people not to condemne one another in things indifferent If there be a care taken in those that have the power to make Ministers to choose men gifted as well for prayer as preaching there cannot be conceived how any inconvenience should follow Or if afterwards it should appeare that any Minister should prove insufficient to discharge the duty of prayer in a conceived way it may be imposed on him as a punishment to use set forms and no other But why any Minister that hath the gift of prayer in an abundant measure as well as of preaching should be hindered from exercising his gift well because another useth it ill is a new Divinity never heard of in Gods Church till Bishop Wrens dayes who forbad all use of conceived prayer in the Church SECT III. WE come now with your Honours favour to the second point disputed in this Remonstrance Episcopacy it selfe against which whatsoever hath been either spoken or written by any either learned Divines or well-reformed Churches as his conscience knows there are of both that have writ against it is Taxed by him as no other then the unjust Clamors either of weak or factious persons Sure the man thinkes he hath obtained a Monopoly of learning and all Knowledge is lockt up in his bosome and not onely Knowledge but piety and peaceablenesse too for all that are not of his opinion must suffer either as weak or factious if he may be their Judge We know not what this Arrogancy might attempt to fasten upon your Honours should the bowels of your compassion be enlarged to weigh in the Ballance of your wisedomes the multitude of Humble petitions presented to you from several parts of this Kingdome that hath long groaned under the Iron and Insupportable yoake of this Episcopal Government which yet we doubt not but your Honours will please to take into your prudent and pious consideration Especially knowing it is their continual practise to loade with the odious names of Faction all that justly complaine of their unjust oppression In his addresse to his defence of Episcopacy he makes an unhappy confession that he is confounded in himselfe Your Honours may in this believe him for he that reades this remonstrance may easily observe so many falsities and contradictions though presented to publike view with a face of confident boldnesse as could not fall from the Pen of any but self-confounded man which though we doubt not but your Honours have descryed yet because they are hid from an errant and unobserving eye under the Embroyderies of a silken Language we Humbly crave your Honours leave to put them one by one upon the file that the world may see what credit is to be given to the bold assertions of this confident Remonstrant First in his second page he dubs his book the faithful messenger of all the peaceable and right affected sons of the Church of England which words besides that unchristian Theta which as we already observed they set upon all that are not of his party carry in the bowels of them a notorious falsity and contradiction to the phrase of the book for how could this book be the m●ss●nger of all his own party in England when it is not to be imagined that all could know of the coming forth of this book before it was published and how can that book crave admittance in all their names that speakes in the singular number and as in the person of one man almost tht whole book thorow But it may be some will say this is but a small slip well be it so but in the seventh page he layes it on in four lines asserting these four things First that Episcopall Government that very same Episcopal Government which some he saith seeke to wound that is Government by Diocesan Bishops derives it self from the Apostles times which though we shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more fully confute anon yet we cannot here but rank it among his notorious for how could there be such Government of a Diocesse by a Bishop derived from the Apostles times when

Truth and not Custome and Custome withou Truth is a mouldy error and as Sir Francis Bacon saith Antiquity without Truth is a Cypher without a Figure Yet had this Remonstrant been as well versed in Antiquity as he would bear the world in hand he hath he might have found Learned Ancients affirming there was a Time when the Church was not governed by Bishops but by Presbyters And when by Bishops he might further have seen more affinity between our Bishops and the Pope of Rome then between the Primitive Bishops and them And that as King Iames of famous memory said of the Religion of England that it differed no more from Rome then Rome did from what it was at first may as truly be said of Bishops that we differ no more from them then they do from what Bishops were when first they were raised unto this eminency which difference we shall shew in our ensuing Discourse to be so great that as he said of Rome he did Roman in Roma quaerere he sought Rome in Rome so wee Episcopatum in Episcopatu may go seek for a Bishop among all our Bishops And whereas in his application of this Argument to the Bishops of this Nation he saith It hath continued in this Island ever since the first plantation of the Gospel without contradiction which is his Second in this Argument How false this is we have declared already and we all know and himselfe cannot but know that there is no one thing since the r●formation that hath met with so much Contradiction as Episcopacy hath done witness the several Books written in the Reigns of our several Princes and the many Petitions exhibited to our several Parliaments and the many speeches made therein againg Episcopal Government many of which are yet extant As for that supply of Accessory strength which he begs to this Argument from the light of nature and the rules of just policy which saith he teacheth us not easily to give way to the change of those things which long use and many Laws have firmly established as Necessary and Beneficial it is evident that those things which to former Ages have seemed Necessary and Beneficial may to succeeding Generations prove not Necessary but Noxious not Beneficial but Burthensome And then the same light of nature and the same just policy that did at the first command the establishment of them may and will perswade their Abolishment if not either our Parliaments must never Repeale any of their former Acts which yet they have justly and wisely done or else in so doing must run Counter to the light of nature and the Rules of just policy which to think were an impiety to be punished by the Judge SECT V. THe Second Argument for the defence of Episcopal Government is from the Pedigree of this holy Calling which he derives from no less then an Apostolical and in that right divine institution and assayes to prove it from the practice of the Apostles and as he saith the clear practice of their Successors continued i' Christs Church to this very day And to this Argument he so much confides that he concludes it with this Triumphant Epiphonema What scruple can remain in any ingenuous heart And determins if any continue yet unsatisfied it is in despight of reason and all evidence of History and because he wilfully shuts his eyes with a purpose not to see the light Bona verba By your favour Sir we will tell you notwithstanding the supposed strength of your argumentation there is one scruple yet remaining and if you would know upon what ground it is this because we find in Scripture which by your own confession is O●iginal Authority that Bishops and Presbyters were Originally the same though afterwards they came to be distinguished and in process of time Episcopacy did swallow up all the honor and power of the Presbytery as Pharaoh's lean Kine did the fat Their Identity is discernable first from the same names given unto both secondly from the same office designed unto both in Scripture As for the names are not the same names given unto both in Sacred Writ Let the fifth sixth and seventh verses of the first Chapter to Titus testifie in the fifth verse the Apostle shews that he left Titus in Creet to ordain Elders in every City in the sixth verse he gives a delineation of the persons that are capable of such Ordination and in the seventh the Reason why the person to be ordained must be so qualified for a Bishop c. Now if the Bishop and Elder be not here the same but names of distinct office and order the Apostles reason rendred in the seventh verse of his direction in the fifth and sixth verses is with reverence be it spoken inconsequential and his demand unjust If a Chancellor in one of the Universities should give order to his Vice-Chancellor to admit none to the degree of Batchelour in Arts but such as were able to preach or keep a Divinity Act For Batchelours in Divinity must be so what reason or equity were in this So if Paul leaving Titus as his Lecum tenens as it were in Creet for a season should give order to him not to admit any to be an Elder but one thus and thus qualified because a Bishop must be so had a Bishop been an Order or Calling distinct from or superior to a Presbyte● and not the same this had been no more rational or equal then the former therefore under the name of Bishop in the seventh verse the Apostle intends the Elder mentioned in the fifth verse Consonant to this is the Language of the same Apostle Acts. 20. v. 17.18 where such as in 17. verse he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Elders in the 18. he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in ordinary English Bishops though our Translation there we know not for what reason reads it Overseers not so rendring the word in any other Text. And though this Remonstrant undertakes to shew a clear and received distinction of Bishops Presbyters Deacons as three distinct subordinate Callings in Gods Church with an evident specification of the duty charge belonging to each of them or else let this claimed Hierarchy be for ever hooted out of the Church Yet let us tell him that we never find in Scripture these three Orders Bishops Presbyters and Deacons mentioned together but onely Bishops and Deacons as Phil. 1. and 1. Tim. Nor do we find in Scripture any Ordination to the office of a Bishop differing from the Ordination of an Elder Nor do we find in Scripture the specification of any Duty charged upon a Bishop that Elders are secluded from Nor any qualification required in a Bishop that is not requisite in every Presbyter some of wh●ch if not all would be found were they not the same But if this Remonstrant think to help himselfe by taking Sanctuary in Antiquity though we would gladly rest in Scripture the Sanctuary of